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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
16
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Jun 14, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Partly concocted from leftover bits of the previous Boston crime movies made by executive producers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (particularly Affleck's 2010 production The Town), and partly from screenwriter Chuck MacLean's fictionalized account of the political cleanup known locally as the Boston Miracle, City on a Hill could reasonably be mistaken for a Bean Town version of The Wire.
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Jun 12, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It’s good, if you like gritty crime drama and crooked cops; and, based on the three episodes available for review, it’s going to get better. ... The scope of “City on a Hill” is more ambitious than most of the Boston stories we’ve seen, including Affleck’s “The Town” and “Gone Baby Gone,” and that gives it distinction.
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RogerEbert.comJun 12, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The dialogue is crisp but never sounds forced or clichéd. These are fast-talkers and fast-movers who often speak and act before they think, and it takes someone who has a history of managing large casts across multiple storylines to really bring a show like this one together. It helps to have an ensemble who all seems to be on the same page as well, and there’s not a weak link in this one.
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The PlaylistAug 10, 2022
Season 3 Review:
If the interpersonal storylines occasionally dip into soapiness, by the end of the six episodes screened (out of eight), the show feels like it’s moving towards a central thesis, bringing Ward and Rohr back together to investigate Dryden. We’ll see how these narratives play out, and if “City on a Hill” can stick its landing. But, if the previous seasons are any indication, “City on a Hill” will be just fine.
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Jun 18, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Some scenes tend to devolve into a lot of bureaucratic jargon and off-the-cuff mentions of Boston locations that might lose anyone unfamiliar with the city. Where the series excels, however, is in the level of detail it brings to its individual characters. ... Such a confident grasp of character goes a long way toward smoothing over the show’s somewhat clumsier big-picture narrative, as City on a Hill proves itself as effective at small, interlocking details as it is at purely hammy thrills.
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IndieWireJun 9, 2019
Season 1 Review:
“City on a Hill” can get a little lost in the bureaucracy of what it’s building, but those details are also what keep it grounded. ... For now, it’s well-balanced and focused on purposeful progress, rather than succumbing to churlish attitudes or salacious material.
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Jun 17, 2019
Season 1 Review:
There are no complaints about the performances in this piece, particularly from the principals and Amanda Clayton, who lends a grimy steel to the role of Frankie’s beautician wife Cathy. Even so, it isn’t as if the kind of story in this “City” hasn’t been told elsewhere and many, many, many times on television and in other places such as New York, Chicago and, hint hint, Baltimore.
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Jun 14, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The period detail stays on the right side of showy, but most important, people here inhabit spaces appropriate to their class and character. The acting builds out the reality too: The performances sell the material, even when the material seems poorly motivated, confusing or just unlikely.
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Jun 11, 2019
Season 1 Review:
City on a Hill feels like a throwback in 2019 because it's not worried about binge-pacing or whether or not you've overcommitted to too many other shows. It has a confidence in its novelistic approach. That's admirable but not without problems, of course: The world building is impressive but the pace is worrisome.
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Jun 14, 2019
Season 1 Review:
City On A Hill is watchable enough, with strong production values and some great location work, and it’s possible that the show will find its footing after a shaky start, as Billions, its predecessor in this Showtime slot, did. In its first three episodes, however, it’s far too dependent on what has come before.
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Jun 8, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The show is inessential, but potential abounds. [14/21 Jun 2019, p.101]
Jun 13, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The performances and production values may be enough to keep you around to see whether the story picks up steam, and whether MacLean finds more original ways to shape his ideas into drama. “City on a Hill” keeps threatening to be interesting and exciting, but so far it hasn’t pulled off the job.
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Jun 11, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The series starts from a relatively rich premise. ... Even as the aperture expands, little gets better: the show’s broad view of a city of wrongdoers and accomplices features many familiar types (from sad-eyed Irish brothers in crime to Rohr’s long-suffering wife, played by a poorly-used Jill Hennessy) and little sense of what life in this particular place is really like. Hodge is, by far, the best thing about the show, blending rectitude with real sorrow and moral confusion.
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TV Guide MagazineJun 20, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Jerks have all the fun--or at least that's how it seems in a '90s-set drama that, despite thick Boston accents and local color, is as generic as its title and twice as cliched. [24 Jun - 7 Jul 2019, p.11]
Jun 14, 2019
Season 1 Review:
In its first three episodes, City on a Hill doesn’t quite manage to sketch out the broad institutional framework that underpins a show like The Wire, and it also fails to make any of its primary characters especially endearing in a way that buys the show time for the rest of its mechanisms to click into place.
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